The Eyes Have it - Creation is Reality
By Bruce Malone
Charles Darwin expressed confidence that natural selection could explain the development of the eye; but how does this confidence stand up in the light of reason? Today, we are in the curious intellectual situation of allowing only naturalistic explanations into public schools. This is done in spite of the fact the alternative (creation or intelligent design) more adequately explains the observations. It would take a miraculous number of design changes to transform a light sensitive patch into an eyeball. Furthermore, each change would have to be coded onto the DNA of the "new" creature in order for the change to pass to the next generation. It has never been explained how this could have happened. Each new feature would need to be independently useful or natural selection would not have allowed the new creature to live.
* An eyeball with no retina would be a tumor, not an improvement to be passed on to the next generation.
* An eyeball without a focusing lens would be worthless except as a light detector.
* An eyeball without a functioning optic nerve to carry the signal to the brain would be worthless.
* An eyeball without the perfect balance of fluid pressure would explode or implode.
* An eyeball without a brain designed to interpret the signals would be sightless.
It is beyond credibility that chance mutations could produce any of these changes, let alone all of them at once. In Darwin’s time the complex design of the eyeball was forceful evidence in favor of creation. Our more advanced knowledge of the intricate design of the eyes provide even stronger evidence for creation.
For instance, as we travel down the "evolutionary ladder" to examine those creatures which were supposedly among the earliest life forms on the planet, would it not be logical to expect their eyes to be less complex? Contrary to this expectation, among the lowest rock layers are found multi-cellular creatures called trilobites which have an extremely sophisticated optical system.2 Some trilobites had a compound eye placed in such a way as to allow 360 degree vision.
Compound eyes are ideally suited detecting minute motions and some trilobite eyes were specially designed to correct for spherical aberration allowing a clear image from each facet. Even more impressive, each lens allowed for undistorted underwater imaging depth perception. Thus, one of the "earliest" invertebrate creatures had clear underwater vision through eyes which could detect both depth and imperceptibly small motions in all directions simultaneously. Yet this creature was not at the end of the supposed evolutionary line but near the beginning! Yet no direct ancestor to this incredible complex creature (or its eye) has been found.
The complexity of eyes still argue for the reality of instantaneous formation by an incredibly intelligent designer. There is neither a fossil record showing that the eye evolved nor any testable observations explain how it could possibly happen. With these facts in mind, why do we allow textbook selection which leaves out both the problems with evolution and the evidence for intelligent design? This is indoctrination, not education.
1. Charles Darwin, The Origin of the Species, republished by J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd., London, 1971, p. 167.
2. R. Levi-Setti, Trilobites: A Photographic Atlas, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1975, pp. 23-45.
A complete set of articles examining science and reality from a Christian perspective can be found at SearchfortheTruth.net and in the book Search for the Truth by Bruce Malone.
